


45. Please don't shut me out.

by KittenKin



Series: Drabble Prompt Fills [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23013910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKin/pseuds/KittenKin
Summary: “Sherlock, can you open the door, please?”
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Drabble Prompt Fills [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605655
Comments: 7
Kudos: 129





	45. Please don't shut me out.

John’s stubborn, crossed-arm, scowling squat outside of Sherlock’s bedroom door lasted only eight minutes. Embarrassment over his part in their argument and this admittedly childish strategy of his - his best friend’s bratty behavior being no proper excuse - smoothed his frown out into merely a somewhat worried expression. Shifting so that he was more perpendicular to the door, he listened to the ongoing silence with a prickle of concern.

“Sherlock?”

Nothing. He knocked as politely as he knew how; an apology for the angry pounding he’d dealt the door earlier.

“Sherlock, can you open the door, please?”

More silence. He’d expected a scathing _“I don’t know, John; **am** I capable of opening the door? One might have their doubts, since I am apparently so utterly devoid of so many basic human qualities.“_ and so on, so this lack of reply was worrying. If Sherlock wasn’t angry and prickly and pouting…what then? Was the pain of their disagreement too deep for words? Had he not only gouged new wounds but also re-opened old ones? Was Sherlock even now retreating into his old shell, ill-fitting and ill-suited now but perhaps offering a cold comfort that seemed better than the mix of friendship and enmity that John had on tap?

“Sherlock, can we talk? That is to say…can I apologize?” John asked through the door. He gnawed on his lip a while, and when he still heard absolutely nothing, began feeling sharp pinpricks of fear. What had he done? And how badly had he done it?

“Sorry, not _can_ I apologize,” he rushed to say. “I apologize. I’m truly, truly sorry, I am. I shouldn’t have said…well, any of it. You know me, you know me so well. I get angry and just blurt out all sorts of horrid things, and you know I don’t really mean it, yeah? It’s no excuse and I’ll do my best to watch my words from now on, but you have to know that they were just words, just angry noises. Don’t take any of it to heart, please.”

“Sherlock?”

“Sherlock, please say something?”

Oh God, oh Christ.

“Sherlock you’re worrying me. Not that you don’t deserve to get yours back but please just let me know you’re all right in there? I’ll take whatever else you want to dish out; I deserve a good tongue-lashing and you’re more than capable of delivering, God knows.”

“…Sherlock?”

John got up on his knees and pressed an ear to the door, then with a sigh, his forehead.

“You didn’t deserve a single one of those ugly, untrue things I said. Please believe me. You’re human in all the best ways and none of the bad. You’re brilliant and sharp and so knowledgeable that you’d put any scholar to shame, but that’s practically the least amazing thing about you when a person gets to really know you, you know? You’re the most kind and caring person I know, even though you won’t admit to even having feelings some days. You have the biggest heart, the greatest capacity to feel.”

He bonked his head once against the wood, trying to find the right words to unlock the door, trying to find the right salve for the injuries he’d so unforgivably inflicted.

“You’re my best friend, Sherlock. You’re _the_ best friend anyone could ever ask for. You’re not just good at sussing out the motivations of criminals; you’re amazing at looking into people’s hurts and vulnerabilities and really empathizing with them. And even if sometimes the things you say aren’t taken well, it’s just your own brand of honesty and _I know that_ , damn it, and I also know it all means that you’ve got this…this…beyond-belief capacity to feel things and out of all the people in the world I should have known better than to ever even _hint_ otherwise. I’m such a…I don’t have a word vile enough for the shitty sort of friend I’ve been to you and I am so very sorry Sherlock. _Please_ open this door?”

“If you’d get out of the way, I’d be happy to,” Sherlock said from behind him.

“ _JEY-ZUS FUCK!_ ” John shouted, falling over sideways and then scrambling to his feet like he’d been electro-shocked in the bum.

Sherlock stood in the hallway, a cello-wrapped twelve pack of Sterlings in one hand and a cautious, wide-eyed look framed by windblown curls.

“What– what–” John gasped, looking at the door as if currently missing facts would be magically posted there and then looking back at his magically appearing flatmate. “How–”

“I crawled out the window three seconds after I locked myself in,” Sherlock explained. “Have you been talking to my door this whole time?”

“Have you been _standing there listening_ this whole time?!” John fairly shrieked, still trying to battle down the sudden adrenaline rush.

“Am I really your best friend?”

“You…yeah, of course you are. Of _course_ you are.” John deflated, shame overriding surprise and embarrassment. “I don’t act up to it and that’s on me, but yes, yes, you are the best person, the best _anything_ I know and my best friend.”

“Not anything,” Sherlock muttered, frowning and looking away now, fiddling with the cigarettes in his hand.

“What?”

“Not your best _anything_ and _everything_ , John. Best friend, only flatmate. But you’re always on the lookout for someone else. You most certainly find me deficient or insufficient in some aspects.”

It sounded petty and pouty and like a resurgence of their earlier argument, but John could see it for what it was now; insecurities, not dulled by politeness but sharp and fresh, and jabbed in John’s direction because Sherlock didn’t know how to handle his own emotions.

John stood straight, squared his shoulders, and took a breath.

“Sherlock, other than my primary care physician, dentist, and optometrist, and probably for both our sakes my therapist, you are my first choice for everything. And if you don’t feel like you are my first pick in any area of my life, I’m just…respecting your choice not to be…that.“ He resisted the urge to add a not very illustrative hand-wave.

“That?” Sherlock asked, halfway between a sneer and a child’s curiosity.

“Um…” _Shit. Shit shit shit._ “Well, things you aren’t interested in. My pub-and-rugby mate. My…dinner-and-movie date.” _Fuuuuck we’re in it now, boys._

John gave up on dignity and did the hand-wave of the vocabularily challenged. __

“You know, areas that aren’t…your area.” _God damn it Watson you graduated university and gave inspiring talks to your men; GATHER and ORGANIZE your SHIT!_

Sherlock sniffed haughtily and looked down at him for a moment before examining the tear-away tab on the cellophane as if it was the most striking and singular advancement in technology that the century had to offer.

“Pub nights are indeed of no interest to me. I have no objection to your continuing to attend such things with Lestrade or Stamford. But perhaps it has fallen within your observations that I will in fact deign to eat dinner and watch a movie so long as it is in your company.”

John did the blinky thing that was generally Sherlock’s schtick and then attempted to clarify, locking eyes on his flatmate’s face with hopeful anticipation.

“I also go on…erm. Snog-and-shag dates, where the dinner and movie are more…incidental.”

“I am open to experimentation,” Sherlock replied tersely, after a short sigh and audible grinding of his teeth. “Based on the results, I would be willing to negotiate and perhaps expand my definition of what is and is not ‘my area’.”

“ _Oh thank Christ,_ ” John breathed, and this brought Sherlock’s gaze back up to his. A quick scan, and then the detective smiled; a lopsided, shy little thing, gone in a flash.

John teleported down the hallway somehow, snatched the cigarettes out of his best friend, flatmate, and date candidate’s hands - “John!” - and chucked them down the stairs for Mrs. Hudson to trip over, tut at, and bin.

“Control kisses first,” John said with a grin. “Cigarette breath is a variable outside the scope of our experiment.”


End file.
